No country is immune to terrorism, but de-radicalizing people who have been attracted to terrorist organizations like ISIS can work.
The recent controversy at Wilfrid Laurier University has set off another debate about free speech. But free speech can’t override the human rights of marginalized people.
(AP Photo file photo/David Goldman)
The raging free speech debate, used by the far right to gain legitimacy, detracts from the real conversations we should be having about human rights and questions about who gets to create knowledge.
Islamophobia in Québec has roots that lie within our missionary past and the Christian nature of our society. We need to reinterpret out past in order to move forward and past 20th century racism.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes)
The current aggressive version of Islamophobia in Québec is unique to the province. We need a critical re-interpretation of our own history to build a Québec freed from our old racist patterns.
The apparently growing practIce of governments and government officials blocking critics on social media has serious implications for freedom of expression.
(Shutterstock)
Citizens should be free to criticize government authorities on social media platforms, and muzzling such criticism may well be unconstitutional.
We can learn a lot from the business practices and ethical stance of newspaper publishing in the 1830s. This image of a New York City newsroom is from the book, “Industries of to-day.”
(Martha Luther Lane/Library of Congress)
Solutions to fake news and financial support for media may come from newspapers of the early 1800s.
Human memories are malleable. U.S. President Donald Trump seems aware of this truism as he effectively moulds and shapes American minds with deceptions and exaggerations.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
He’s not dumb. He’s not crazy. Donald Trump is instead a mind manipulator, using his Twitter magic wand to exploit so-called malleable memory effect that helps him achieve ultra-right goals.
Canadians often mourn the loss of their local newspaper. But there’s a disconnect, because few Canadians actually pay for a local news subscription.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward)
The love Canadians profess for their local newspapers isn’t quite what it seems. Few pay for a subscription, and many say they can get their news elsewhere if their local paper shuts down.
The framing of Motion 103, combatting Islamophobia, may seem like a distant concern to the free speech debate in universities, but it is in fact related in the way the so-called “alt-right” uses free speech as a rhetorical prop in their campaigns of ideological intimidation. Here:
Protesters rally over motion M-103, the Liberal anti-Islamophobia motion, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in March.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)
Right-wing ideologues use free speech as an alibi for their transphobic and Islamophobic rhetoric.
A statue of John A. Macdonald is shown covered in red paint in Montreal in November 2017. Canada’s first Prime MInister, he has been criticized for his treatment of Indigenous peoples and attitudes towards those of Chinese origin.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes)
In a time of populism and political polarization, children and young adults need to learn to think critically, with complexity and nuance. History, as a subject, is more important than ever.
A woman lights candles in honour of women killed by gun violence during an event in Toronto marking the anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre in Montreal that left 14 women dead.
(CP PHOTO/Adrian Wyld)
On the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, Concordia Research Chair on Intersectionality, Violence and Resistance, Yasmin Jiwani reflects on violence and action.
Some restaurant-owners are grappling with abolishing tipping.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
Restaurant tipping came to North America in the early 20th century and has become well-established here even as the practice is less common in the U.K. and Europe. Is it time to rethink it?
A review of the prevalence of child sex abuse around the world shows that one in five females are affected and one in 13 males.
(Shutterstock)
In the wake of the #Metoo movement, and with the goal of transforming toxic masculinity into compassionate masculinity, we must create new spaces to listen to male victims of child abuse too.
Women’s NGOs work hard to improve the lives of women in the developing world, including in countries like India and Tanzania. But then they’re often cut out from the process. This photo was taken in the remote village of Uzi on Zanzibar Island in Tanzania in April 2016.
(Shutterstock)
NGOs (non-government organizations) run by women in India and Tanzania fuel the success of development projects, but the women are too easily marginalized once the projects get off the ground.
Current medical inadmissibility rules for newcomers are out of touch with Canadian values and need to be reformed. Here, candles around an AIDS symbol on World AIDS Day in Quezon city, Philippines 2016.
(AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
World AIDS Day is an opportunity to discuss how current medical inadmissibility rules for newcomers are out of touch with Canadian values and need to be reformed.
Scene from the movie, Troy, loosely based on Homer’s Iliad.
(Troy)
A classics professor is haunted by the co-optation of his discipline by the so-called “alt-right,” toxic masculinity and other self-styled “defenders of Western civilization.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has apologized to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and two-spirited people who were forced out of the military or public service and some who were even prosecuted criminally for “gross indecency.”
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to make a formal apology to LGBTQ2 communities for past state-sanctioned discrimination against them in Canada. But the apology must be more than just words.
Model Adriana Lima walks the stage in “Nomadic Adventure” lingerie “inspired by indigenous African cultures,” at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show in Shanghai on Nov. 20.
(Handout)
At Victoria’s Secret recent fashion show on Nov. 20, models strutted down the runway wearing Native-inspired regalia. There is no excuse for this socially irresponsible behaviour.
Two young Brazilian men at a carnival street party in Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro wearing traditional Indigenous feathers.
(Shutterstock)
Taking a practical and pragmatic approach by posing a series of questions to consider, this summary of the IPinCH guide unpacks important questions about cultural appropriation.
People demonstrate in Toronto in August 2017 in solidarity with those at a University of Virginia rally against white supremacy. That demonstration ended in tragedy after a woman was killed by a white supremacist. Universities in both the U.S. and Canada are at the centre of fierce debates about free speech and the right of those on the far right to be heard.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
In such a polarized age, universities and colleges should uphold the core values of liberal education by asserting, through their policies and practices, the reasonable, rational middle ground.
Humanoid robots at an international robotics competition in Tehran, Iran, during 2014. Students from 22 countries, including Canada, were competing during the three-day event.
(AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
In their relentless pursuit of research commercialization, and bigger robots, universities might miss the real opportunity of technology - to make our world a better place.
Cirque du Soleil is one of the many Canadian artist groups that have received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts.
(Cirque du Soleil)
The new creative framework policy put forth by the Canadian government has been criticized for its capitalist and Silicon Valley leanings. But it’s actually Canada’s best creative policy to date.
Isabel Daniels weeps as she speaks of her murdered cousin, Nicole Daniels, at the opening day of hearings at the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Winnipeg in October 2017.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods)
Canadians should be listening closely to stories coming from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. We need to hear the truth and then help justice move forward.
Wooden stakes representing the 2,224 confirmed overdose deaths in British Columbia - many of them young Indigenous people - over the last three years, are placed on the ground at Oppenheimer Park, in Vancouver on September 29, 2017.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)
Research shows that Indigenous women are at greatest risk of injury within Canada. Income, education and housing inequities play a role. So does systemic racism and post-colonial trauma.
Brain damage linked to concussions in football can resemble that found in elderly and comatose patients but there may be ways to prevent it so the sport continues. Toronto Argonauts’ Jeffrey Finley, left, rushes to take down Calgary Stampeders’ quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell in this August file photo.
( THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh)
Concussions in football and other contact sports correlate with severe, long-term brain damage — but science shows it doesn’t have to be that way.
Loyalty to the British Empire is taught to these second and third generation Japanese children in an Internment Camp in British Columbia circa 1942.
(CP PHOTO/Jack Long National Archives of Canada C-067492)
Recently, 300 protest letters written by Japanese Canadians in the 1940s were reopened. The letters convey a deep sense of loss, injustice and outrage by Japanese Canadians who lost their homes.
